>I see certification and scope and sequence (curriculum) as inextricably
>linked.  Certification has got to come out of curriculum or it's
>inappropriate, unfair, and possibly outside the law.  

Well, you may see it that way, but that is not going to get you into the higher circles of influence.  Certification is of course tied to curriculum, but there is no reason for it to be tied to the scope and sequence of any particular institution.  It needs to be based on more of an independent and complete standard.  The certification can also drive scope and sequence in that if a test like PRAXIS, CBEST or SAT are requiring certain knowledge than it will have to be taught.  Its more a checks and balances thing than a competition.  


>Phil asserts that the traditional grammar that's out there is what
>students need to know, that it's adequate, and that it should be the
>basis of curriculum and certification.  

You haven't completely undestood my point.  What I am saying is that the entirety of traditional grammar is inescapable.  You can just pull out a carborator teach that and say that's all that's important in auto mechanics.  the carborator implies the whole thing just a parts of speech imply parts of the sentence and so on.  I am not so much for or against traditional grammar as a realist who recognizes it is inescapable.  Anything else looks and is naive.  


However, Phil remains vague about what this traditional
>grammar is.  

On the contrary.  I am quite specific: Chicago Manual of Style, MLA Guidebook, APA style guide, Strunk and White, and on and on and on.  The fixed and bounded body of knowledge that is grammar is KNOWN.  This not a no man's land, we are not alchemists discovering chemistry.  We are members of a field that has gotten itself caught in a very foolish error.  Jespersen and Quirk are also fine but too wide in scope for most school grammar classes.  Mark Honnegar's book _Grammar for Reading_ is reasonable.  Also you can read my review of that book in the last ATEG to get a fuller treatment of my views.  

Phil Bralich


>   Amen to your thoughts on polarization.
>   I think the proposal for a "certification" program SEEMs like an
>attempt to derail scope and sequence, and I'm saying that in the hope
>that we can disagree clearly and directly and respectfully when we do.
>Scope and sequence is an ongoing project; is it failing? If it is, that
>might be because there is a great deal of difficulty moving ahead with
>such a disparate group. Do we need a certification program, along
>Phil's lines (not too exuberant or youthful, not closely connected to
>writing and literature, much more conservative and traditional than the
>path we were taking) to replace it and fold it in? If so, let's address
>that issue directly.
>   I think that there were reasons why the old grammar was called into
>question. The teaching of writing is now much, much better than it was
>when the prime focus was on correcting error. A good deal of grammar
>instruction has been inaccurate (descriptively) and somewhat arbitrary
>and dysfunctional (prescriptively), not well connected to meaningful
>writing or a meaningful interaction with text. In good conscience, I
>can't go to my colleagues in composition and say we have decided that
>Warriner's has been OK all along, and we want to test you to see if you
>know what's in there before you can continue to teach. We would be
>simply extending the contentiousness from our group to the larger
>field. We would be saying, in effect, that there was nothing of
>substance in the movement away from grammar. It would seem like a war
>against reading and writing from the grammar side.
>    The path we were on--a fairly careful rethinking of traditional
>grammar, with attention to how grammar might be integrated into
>reading and writing in a substantive way--I believe has the potential
>to win over converts. It would also offer a systematic approach (both
>scope and sequence) for any group interested in that kind of advice.
>We can certainly make recommendations for teacher training, both
>long-term (for new teachers) and short term (for current teachers not
>well versed in the field, often through no fault of their own.)
>   The conference enthusiastically endorsed the program with a clear
>sense
>of its direction and its goals. It may very well be that the ATEG
>membership doesn't buy into that approach. If so, lets say so openly
>and directly.
>   Are we too polarized to come up with a consensus? That was Ed Vavra's
>prediction when we started this talk. If that's the case, we don't
>necessarily need to feel bad about that. The world needs a place where
>people who disagree fundamentally can somewhat collegially discuss
>their approaches and differences. To me, it just means that I will
>create continuing problems by trying to coordinate a more progressive
>program for a group that is not unified enough to endorse it.
>   The project could continue outside the umbrella of ATEG. Perhaps a
>Certification program could as well. As it stands now, we would
>probably keep each other from happening because of fundamental
>disagreements about the nature of grammar and its role within the
>curriculum.
>
>Craig
>
> There has been some hint of polarization on the list, and I interpreted
>> Rebecca Watson's "jangle my nerves" in that context.  If I have done
>> Rebecca a disservice I apologize, but I'm more concerned that there
>may in
>> fact be some polarization, which leads to partisanship, which is, as
>we
>> see too often in Congress and in political debate, the point at which
>> critical thinking shuts down.
>>
>> I hope I'm wrong about this, because we need all the critical thinking
>we
>> can get on the tasks we've set for ourselves.
>>
>> Herb
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of
>Johanna
>> Rubba
>> Sent: Thu 8/31/2006 5:04 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Grammar Certification
>>
>> I'm trying to understand why the book Rebecca Watson refers to would
>> "jangle my nerves". I don't know what IEP stands for; that might help
>> me understand.
>>
>> Anyone who has read my posts on this list knows that I advocate
>> teaching grammar in effective ways. For beginning students (for all
>> students, really), visuals are great. I believe in nouns, verbs,
>> capitalization, and punctuation. How they're defined and how and when
>> they're taught is what concerns me. I use my own manuscript in my
>> structure-of-English classes, and most of my students consistently
>rate
>> it between 8 and 10 (10-high) on two criteria: (1) clarity and
>> accessibility of the information and (2) usefulness of the information
>> for their future careers as teachers.
>>
>> I don't recall anyone posting to this list who doesn't want
>> schoolchildren to come out of K-12 fluent in standard English. It's
>the
>> HOW and the WHAT and the WHEN that are at issue.
>>
>> As to The ESL Grammar Book, I stated clearly in my post that I was
>> referring to teacher trainees, not ESL students. Maybe it's better as
>a
>> reference book than a textbook. I haven't taught from it myself; I'm
>> just familiar with its contents. Students apparently find it
>> accessible, since it was in use at MT and Herb has testified to that
>> effect, and I imagine it is in use elsewhere, or else it wouldn't be
>on
>> the market anymore. I do believe that ESL teachers should have
>Master's
>> degrees, and that  they should have a full year of linguistics, from
>> phonetics to discourse. If you're going to teach language, you'd
>better
>> know your subject.
>>
>> As to learning linguistic theories when preparing to teach ESL, I
>don't
>> see what's wrong with it. Much of teacher education is _background
>> knowledge_, not necessarily stuff that you will translate directly
>into
>> classroom lessons. Teachers need good classroom materials that are
>> informed by linguistics, too, but those materials will not be theory
>> books. Such materials aren't widely available right now; that's one
>> thing some of us are working on. Teachers have also been known to
>> design their own teaching materials. Understanding how language works
>> is very useful for that endeavor.
>>
>> History majors who go on to be high school or middle school history
>> teachers learn more history in college than they ever teach, I assume.
>> I know much, much, much more about language than I ever teach, because
>> all of my classes are introductory, and I have no linguistics MA or
>PhD
>> students. A good number of students in our elementary-school teacher
>ed
>> program seem to believe that they don't need to know more about the
>> subjects they will teach than what is in the teaching materials they
>> will use for their students. This isn't good.
>>
>> Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
>> Linguistics Minor Advisor
>> English Department
>> California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
>> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>> Tel.: 805.756.2184
>> Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
>> Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
>> URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>>
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